“I’ll have your badge! I’m suing this department and everyone to do with this! This is an outrage! I’m a law-abiding taxpayer. You can’t just come into my house—”
“I have a valid warrant, signed by a judge,” Mascherino said firmly as she stepped into the fray. “This has all been explained to you thoroughly, Mr. Nilsen. You will not be allowed inside the house while the search is being conducted, so you might as well calm down and sit down out there, or go sit in your car—”
“Mr. Nilsen would like to contest the validity of the search warrant,” Nilsen’s attorney said, out of breath as he arrived at the front steps. He looked to be about Nilsen’s vintage, but twice his girth, a morbidly obese man with a neck so large he couldn’t button the top two buttons of his shirt.
“I’m sure Mr. Nilsen would like a lot of things,” Mascherino said. “But he won’t get that one.”
Nilsen’s face was purple. Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog as he shouted at her. “I want the name of your captain! I’ll put an end to your career!”
Mascherino stood firm, the warrant in her purple-gloved hand, her Mother Superior posture ramrod straight. “I’ll put an end to your freedom for the evening, Mr. Nilsen,” she said. “If you insist on trying to interfere with the execution of this warrant, I’ll have this officer read you your rights and take you straight back downtown. Do you understand me?”
Nilsen sputtered, shrugging off the hand his attorney tried to lay on his shoulder. He peered over the top of Mascherino’s head, his gaze fixing on Nikki.
“That one has it in for me,” he said. “She’s probably in there planting evidence.”
“She’s doing no such thing,” Mascherino said.
Nikki let his insult roll off. He was a man in a panic. His insular little world was being touched and handled by strangers, his past being dug up like a garden that had been left to the weeds for twenty-five years. Like a cornered animal, he was going to lash out any way he could.
“I’ll come out of the house if that makes you feel any better, Mr. Nilsen,” she offered calmly, surreptitiously slipping the two photographs she had found into her coat pocket.
Nilsen looked at Mascherino. “I don’t want that little bitch in my house.”
“It’s okay, LT,” Nikki said, slipping past her superior. “I’ll wait outside. It’s fine.”
The lieutenant gave her a flat look, her suspicion carefully hidden. Nilsen took a grudging half step to the side to let her out and then followed her down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Mascherino went back to the search, and the uniformed officer resumed his post at the door.
“I’m sure you’ll find this hard to believe,” Nikki said as Nilsen and his attorney descended from the porch. “But I’m very good at my job, Mr. Nilsen. My only focus is solving the crime. I’ll do whatever I need to do to make that happen. If that means I wait out here so the search can be done in an expedient manner, then I wait out here.”
He walked past her without so much as acknowledging that she had spoken.
Nikki stood with her hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched against the damp cold, watching while Nilsen dispatched his attorney. The two men stood arguing at the nose of a black Lincoln parked at the curb. The lawyer finally threw his hands up, got in the car, and drove away.
Nilsen came back up the sidewalk, stopping just short of the steps and glaring up at the officer blocking the way into his home. He was breathing hard from aggravation, his face mottled red. He didn’t want them in his house. There had to be a good reason for that.
Nikki stood on the lawn just a few feet from him, the damp soaking into her shoes. Hands in her coat pockets, she fingered the photographs of Angie Jeager. Just how angry would Donald Nilsen have been to know that his son had a crush on the tart next door?
“Your son, Jeremy, went to school with the Duffys’ foster daughters, didn’t he?”
Nilsen ignored her. She could see his pulse in a big vein on the side of his neck.
“Jennifer, the oldest Duffy girl, told me your son and Angie Jeager were friends. That must have been awkward, considering the names you called those girls.”
“That’s a lie,” he snapped, unable to leave the bait alone.
“Really?” Nikki said. “Why would she lie about something like that?”
He didn’t answer. He shook a finger at the house. “If there’s one thing missing out of that house, I’ll sue.”
“We’re only looking for the .243 and ammunition for it. We don’t have any interest in the rest of your things, though I find it strange that your wife left so much behind when she took off. She must have been in some big hurry.”
Nilsen glared at her, directing his finger her way. “If you touched her things—”
Nikki held a hand up. “I know, I know, you’ll sue,” she said on a long sigh. “So, did Jeremy try to keep it a secret that he was seeing Angie? Or was he one of those kids that just wanted something to throw in your face?”
“I don’t have anything to say to you about my son or anything else.”
“I have to think you would have blown a gasket finding out he was seeing that girl behind your back.”